[Leica] Re: was Schwartza Fenza? Now: Printing frame lines

[Chandos Michael Brown <cmbrow@mail.wm.edu>]

Real interesting question, I think.

I don't know the specific origins of the printing of the "black edge" as an 
integral part of the image.  I do know that I associated it in the late 60s 
and early 70s with the "full frame" school of photographic reportage, 
which, as I understood it (and practiced it for many years--though w/o 
printing the frame) embraced the notion that one cropped only with the 
viewfinder and elevated this technique to a prescriptive aesthetic.  If I 
put my mind to it, I could come up with a few examples from that period.

As you might imagine--and I won't risk offending the LUG with any sustained 
description of it--there's a great deal of critical theory that speaks to 
the marking of the image as artifact, of the superimposition of "technique" 
(meaning the camera itself), upon the visual field, and so on.

I read recently that this sort of thing was au courant with the young 
advertising set.  Apparently they associate the printed frame with the 
mystique of "glamor," mystique in the sense that the edge marking of film 
(especially bar-coding) is hieroglyphic and, well, if you chant it just 
right, "11 Kodak 200-3 12" passes for a pretty decent mantra.  All the 
better if it frames some anorexic adolescent posed languidly in a pair of 
Ted's underwear.

Chandos


At 09:42 AM 9/4/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>Was wondering what y'all think about the habit of including the 'black
>edge'.



Chandos Michael Brown
Assoc. Prof., History and American Studies
College of William and Mary

http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown